LottoNL-Jumbo's Robert Gesink is set to make his return to competition at the upcoming Tour Down Under. The Dutchman's last race was the Tour de France.

Gesink suffered a vertebra fracture at the ninth stage of the 2017 Tour de France and was sidelined for the rest of the season. After a long recovery during which he had to wear a corset to stabilise the vertebra, the rider has announced that he will come back to competition in January of 2018 at the Australian race.

Gesink will have the company of Lars Boom, Tom Leezer, Daan Olivier, Robert Wagner, George Bennet and Juan Jose Lobato in the Tour Down Under, as was confirmed by the team to Dutch website NUsport.

The team also confirmed that it has been working on time trial positions and equipment in the wind tunnel of Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Even though Boom, Gesink, Primoz Roglic, Jos van Emden, Steven Kruijswijk, Timo Roosen, Koen Bouwman and Dylan Groenewegen worked in the tunnel at the same time, the team denies that this will be the formation for the upcoming Tour de France, which features a team time trial.

"The tunnel in Eindhoven is unique because you can test nine people in a row," said the team's spokesperson. "We were looking for an ideal sequence for the team time trial, Roglic is often our best man but he is very small and that can cause a few problems. We just did tests with several riders in different postures behind Roglic to see which one could be our best man in that position."

"No conclusions can be taken from this tests for the Tour of France. We are always looking for ways to take the best advantage of each situation."

Photo of Robert Gesink at the 2016 Vuelta - by CyclingPub / Mary Cardenas